[TrumpCard]

I think recruiting has been a big factor in 3-9, 4-2, and 4-8. Others (Samuel McF, Boston Card?) can do a better job than I of explaining in detail re: how recruiting--rankings aside--has been woefully inadequate for the past 4 or 5 cycles.

I said recruiting is not my primary gripe at the moment.  Despite some significant exceptions, Shaw has been mostly very good in recruiting over the course of his tenure, which tells me that he is capable of recruiting at a high level.  And, at the moment, the tea leaves look okay to me.  The 2022 class was fine, the 2023 class is starting out fine, and like Samuel said, if Shaw is able to right the ship on the field, I have some confidence that recruiting will continue to be fine.  I actually get the sense that Stanford has fixed some of the problems that ailed the recruiting machine as recently as a couple of years ago.  For example, Stanford now has spring official visits and early enrollment, even if more limited in numbers than most other schools.  And Shaw no longer limits the offers he makes to the number of known scholarship openings, so he actually has a shot at filling his allotted scholarships.  The 2021 recruiting class was bad (obviously), but I think that happened mostly due to COVID, not due to anything Shaw reasonably could have solved.  So, like I said, I have bigger fish to fry than complaining about recruiting at the moment.

[TrumpCard]

I think recruiting has been a big factor in 3-9, 4-2, and 4-8. Others (Samuel McF, Boston Card?) can do a better job than I of explaining in detail re: how recruiting--rankings aside--has been woefully inadequate for the past 4 or 5 cycles.

I said recruiting is not my primary gripe at the moment.  Despite some significant exceptions, Shaw has been mostly very good in recruiting over the course of his tenure, which tells me that he is capable of recruiting at a high level.  And, at the moment, the tea leaves look okay to me.  The 2022 class was fine, the 2023 class is starting out fine, and like Samuel said, if Shaw is able to right the ship on the field, I have some confidence that recruiting will continue to be fine.  I actually get the sense that Stanford has fixed some of the problems that ailed the recruiting machine as recently as a couple of years ago.  For example, Stanford now has spring official visits and early enrollment, even if more limited in numbers than most other schools.  And Shaw no longer limits the offers he makes to the number of known scholarship openings, so he actually has a shot at filling his allotted scholarships.  The 2021 recruiting class was bad (obviously), but I think that happened mostly due to COVID, not due to anything Shaw reasonably could have solved.  So, like I said, I have bigger fish to fry than complaining about recruiting at the moment.